Joan Mitchell Center Artist-in-Residence

Athena LaTocha

Born in Anchorage, AK, Athena LaTocha is an artist whose monumental works on paper explore the tenuous relationship between man-made and natural landscapes. Her work has been shown across the country in places such as the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, CUE Art Foundation, Artists Space, Chelsea Art Museum, New York State Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, South Dakota Art Museum, and the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, AK. In 2017, she had a solo exhibition at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, NM.

LaTocha received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Stony Brook University, NY. LaTocha is a 2016 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant. Additionally, she was awarded the prestigious Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency in 2013. The artist attended the Vermont Studio Center with a full fellowship, and has also been an artist-in-residence at chashama at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in New York (2008 to 2015); Institute of American Indian Art, Santa Fe, NM (2017); and the Wave Hill Winter Workspace Program, Bronx, NY (2018). Currently she divides her time between New York City and Peekskill, NY.

“Much of my work is based upon direct research conducted through site visits to wilderness areas, national parks, and industrial sites. This research, together with material samples, is then brought back to the studio. I unfurl large rolls of paper on the floor and immerse myself in the painting. Surrounded on all sides by the expanse of paper, I move through the work as if I am traversing the terrain.”